“Lundrigan plaits a rich braid of tales, as effortless to read as it is to believe. The places and events that surround and shape Stella are richly rendered through a crafted style that is never affected or merely ornamental…As with celebrated Newfoundland pre-cursors, including Bernice Morgan’s “Ned” (Random Passage) or Michael Crummey’s “Wish” (The Wreckage), many of the supporting characters framing Stella are also compellingly real. Stella’s husband Leander, a man with mysterious power to find the lost, is particularly vivid…While enlisting the vernacular outport culture, Lundrigan resists the easy, precarious fall into stereotype. Her use of Newfoundland dialect always seems apt; her engaging of myth and mystery is more natural than forced. Metaphors and harbingers abound, but they are subtle…The Seary Line considers the means by which we each measure a life. This sensitivity separates the story from myriad multi-generational, historical novels that simply restore the flavour of an imagined past. While Lundrigan’s pre-confederation outports and characters do charm, and her narrative quickly pulls you in, something extra permeates this novel. It is the bare consideration of memory, regret, and how a single, slipped moment can fix a life.”

Existing records show that women of the Atlantic region were owners of boats, ships and waterfront properties from as early as 1650. Women’s involvement in early fishing adventures as sole owners and “co-partners in trade” was real and substantial. This sample of approximately 500 Newfoundland women depicts a hardy, durable and tenacious woman who was more than equal to the challenges and opportunities of her time. The study is complemented by interviews with some of the women who had owned working ships from the 1930s to the 1960s. A companion volume on more than 1,000 women ship owners of the Maritime provinces and Quebec is in progress.

“In Silk Sails: Women of Newfoundland and Their Ships Mary Huelen’s story is just one of nearly 500 sketches related by Calvin Evans, and the details of her dramatic story reflect both the book’s biographical strengths and its deep thematic tensions…Silk Sails is a welcome addition to the historical literaure about women in Atlantic Canada. Its strengths are the excellent primary research and the richly detailed brief biographies of shipowning women in Newfoundland between the late 17th century and the 1960s. Evans’s meticulous research about Newfoundland Women’s roles in both the fishing industry and shipping…”